In a Latitude of Temperance (The Adventures of Ichabod Temperance Book 5) (13 page)

“I say, our chemyst needs company. Yoo, hoo! Dr. Xen Xum Xng! Would you care to join us?”

“Ohhhh, thank you so much, Honorable Plumtartt woman. You are too kind.”

“Not at all, Doctor, please allow me to introduce our good friends, Wolfgang Metzger and Mademoiselle DeeDee Gauzot.”

“Guten Abend Herr Doktor Xen Xum Xng.”

“Oui! So very nice to meet a gentleman that can pull off wearing such an unmanly outfit with such savoire faire, mon ami Dr. Xen Xum Xng. You do so with the panache, I think, too! Oui!”

“Ohhhh, thank you so much my friends.”

“Yeah, I really like that there shiny tunic Dr. Zen...”

“Atte!”

“Eep! Sorry, sir! I mean, I really do like that there shiny tunic Dr. X.”

“Vas ist das noizen? It is as a dull thump, a sharp thwock and a sliding/dragging sound repeated over and over slowly getting closer und closer.”

~thump~
thwock! Sssllllk.

~thump~
thwock! Sssllllk.

~thump~
thwock! Sssllllk.

“Why looky there, Miss Plumtartt! Guess who just dragged his hulking carcass into the big doorway, his weighty head hung before his high hunched shoulders, much like the condors that encrust the crenelations of this pre-fab fortress’s battlements?”

“Do you refer to the beastly fellow that leans heavily on his cane and casts about the assembled guests in such an openly disapproving manner? The one that looks about at the many assembled people and gives each a critical surveillance, followed by a smug, dismissive wave characterized by a twiddling hex of his fingers?”

“Yes, Ma’am! That’s the one! That’s my old friend Professor Christopher DiddleFudde! Howdy, howdy, Professor. C’mon over and meet the gang.”

~thump~
thwock! Sssllllk.
“Enh? Is that you, Temperance? I thought I sent you a piece of driftwood saying not to come? Bah! What’s this? You stand in this vast hall of fiendish vampires with your little friends? This beautiful girl in the satiny blue dress that even I can see is of the latest fashion and appears to be in some sort of binary grouping with yourself I suppose, you being a boy and she being a girl, henh? What is this I see? Instead of a wiry little spring machine like you Icka-whats, this fellow with the immaculate grooming habits that stands so straight and tall as if to mock my own once tall now slothful slouching postured self is dressed in a proper gentleman’s suit instead of the bedraggled way in which you present yourself as if you stumble in from shipwreck and other disaster. Because disasters happen. One must be prepared, as this charming, beautiful woman standing alongside the good looking male in the bunch. She is clothed in adventuresome fashion that I could really grow to like, I think! Close fitting leather pants as a man might wear, but these pants were specifically designed to encompass the female form in a most assuredly pleasing manner! I think the contrasts of the lighter skinned brown against the softly shiny black inseam is a nice touch, too. Some might think the stitching up the outside is too much but I like it. I like the way they caress your shapely get-around sticks into those sturdy knee high boots, my dear. I can’t get enough of you! The way your black leather vest compliments your figure sends me into orbits! Orbits as in around this Sun we never see anymores. It’s been a long time since I saw the Sun. Since May. May I ask you something? Can you see if I have a cavity? It’s right back he’r-rr’rr-’...”

“Oh, er, yes, I say. There might be one back there, I suppose, my word!”

“Hey, Professor DiddleFudde! We’re ready for you!”

“Oh, excuse me, I’m on!”
~thump~
thwock! Sssllllk.

“Oi vhey! It’s the entertainments, already now is it? So who am I, Grampa Louis, to resist? At least as a percussionist, I get to sit down and rest my howling children of the night. Oi.”

“Pardon me while I make an adjustment in the amplitude of this circuitry. Good, I think that’s it. Now to make a tiny adjustment to the six wire wound frequency initiator pegs positioned at the end of the neck of my wavelength generation device. There, I am ready, how about you Hela?”

“I am prepared vith my electronically volume enhanced stand up bass fiddle Herr Professor DiddleFudde.”

“So take it avay already, Baron Leigh. I am prepared to lay the hammer down. Oi vhey am I ready.”

“Hhaugh, hhaugh. Kahmme cheeldrien” invites Baron Kristopher Leigh, also known as the
Prince
of Darkness.

“Llette us party like it’s

Nein Thee Sunnity-Shine.”

“Ha, ha! I beg of you! Please allow me to count you off! Four is the time in vhich I count! Ha, ha, ha! Ah, vhaun! Ah two! Ah, vhaun, two, three, four!”

My Vampyrellah sensitivities are pleased to enjoy this mix of ‘Good’ and ‘Bad’, undead collection now fully gathered. I have already sent word to Count ‘D’. He will be here shortly. It is a pleasant thing to enjoy the dark season here, near the Southern pole, escaping the hated sun during the months of her worst assaults on the Northern hemisphere. I wonder where I shall spend the Northern hemisphere’s winter this next season?

I am also most curious to find out what it is that
he
has in store for us in the vampire community that he would have Count D  bring us all together under promise of truce? He very clearly has something in mind for these cleverly inventive humans.

For now, though, I shall enjoy the strange dyno-lectric warblings that Professor Christopher DiddleFudde and his Groovy Ghoulies provide. Apparently Vampira is now a part of the act. Though at a quarter of the time measure as her bandmates, her tambourine hip bounces provide a depth of ambiance to the group.

The jaded party attendees prove to be surprisingly appreciative of the unusual musical stylizations, applauding and cheering with enthusiasm. Filling the floor space before the electric orchestra, the audience gyrates in a macabre, rhythmic dance composed of the living and the dead.

---

A light breeze stirs me slowly to a reluctant consciousness. I must have stumbled off to bed after lots of wild cavorting and carrying on with all them monster mashers. I had forgotten how weary I was for a little while there. I hope Miss Plumtartt got to bed all right.

Looks like I accidentally fell asleep without blowing the candle out. I guess I just stripped out of all my clothes and fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow. That candle is sputtering in the light breeze that has awakened me. It must be coming through that open window. The tall, diamond pane, glass doorway is pushed open in that long bank of latticed windows, inviting the silvery blue beams of a full, frosty moon to fill the spacious bedchamber. A distant ceiling allows ample room for the pale, white, diaphanous curtains to slowly dance in the unearthly glow of the wintry beams.

Inexplicably, my body tingles with an un-named expectancy. My heart is a flutter, like that of a rabbit, being pursued by a ravenous animal. I want to run. Why is it that I have the feeling of being trapped before an overpowering predator?

I feel as if I am awaiting someone’s arrival.

I hear the sounds of flapping movement outside. Now I see it! A large bat flits about outside the open window. It  darts in the open aperture. Once inside, the leather-winged creature makes a quick circuit of the lofty room, circling the four poster bed I lie in. Its erratic movements settle in the center of the bedroom, and slow as it holds itself suspended in place.

Oh, my goodness! The creature appears to drop a pair of human legs beneath it and in a fraction of a second has transformed into human form! I know this form! It is the powerful and sensual figure of the amazing Vampyrellah! She stands without moving. I lie in bed, as still as I can, but she sees me. Her bottomless eyes lock on mine. They almost prevent me from seeing any more of her incredible outfit. She has exchanged her tiny red bathing suit for an extremely sheer pink negligee. Just barely clearing her cocked hips, its ephemeral nothingness does little to protect the body it fails to hide. She has also exchanged her knee high boots for a pair of high heeled, thigh topping, leather waders.

“Hauh, hauh, hauh, you are forr
e
m
e
, Ichsabod.”

“You’re not gonna drain me of my vital bodily fluids are you, Ma’am?”

“Da.”

-gulp!-

After a long, scintillating, stare, Vampyrellah begins a slow-motion, passion-primed, panther insinuation toward my canopied bed. She hesitates in a breathless expectancy for two moments before wrenching the covers away, exposing me to her hungry and encompassing visions. She takes a moment to drink me in. With a quick pounce, the she-cat leaps upon the bed to straddle my helpless form. Her breathing increases into great gasping gulps and she comes down hard on my arms with her red-nailed fingers pinning me to the mattress. Wild eyes flame with maddened desire as she grimaces. Violently shaking me and baring her animal fangs she hisses:

“Wake up! Wake up, Icky, m’boy, yaer’re havin a bad dream!”

I awaken for real this time to find that the voluptuous Vampyrellah has, disappointingly, turned out to be my Scottish pal.

“It wasn’t really that bad of a dream, Pol.”

“Tee, hee! The condition I find ye in lends me tae believe ye’. Tee, hee!”

“Oops.”

“Think noothing o’ it m’lad. I’d offer ye a tug o’ me rum tae help ye’ back tae sleep, bhaughtte with a name likes Temperance...”

“I’m on vacation!”

“Then here ye’ go, m’lad.”

“Did you hear something, Pol? Something like somebody trying to push up a poorly made, cheapy window set? A cheap, slidey window as you might find in a small, low-ceilinged, badly constructed shabby motel, as we have in this tiny, hotel-like room we have to share in this cut-rate castle   double sleeper?”

“Aye! Oh! Looks there, Icky! A terrible and frightening face appears at our window, high above the ground! Wild and wide eyes appear to us from over the moustache o’ a gigantic walrus! The giant, man-eating seals have found us!”

“I don’t think so, Pol. The face that supports the enormous and bushy moustache is that of an elderly and exasperated man. A mane of white hair surrounds his angry features as he pounds on the window in a determined effort to gain entrance to this room. Should we let him in?”

“He’ll bae expecting tae pay a percentage o’ the bill, bhaughtte aye, let’s let him in.”

By raising the window, I find it easier to communicate with the gentleman outside.

“Howdy sir, may we help you?”

“Ach! I must know if you are of humanities or of the walking corpses. Speak quickly, friend or fiend!?”

“Ye’ bae the one a’knockin’ on our window late o’ night. Oye bae thinking we are the ones tae ask ye’ that.”

“I am proud to be of the humans!”

“Yae’re name, pleaese, ye’ crazy ol’ coot o’ a human.”

“Mein name ist Abraham Van Heksink!”

“And how dae ye manage tae bae paepin’ in our window late o’ night with it baeing fifteen feet in the air, Dutchie?”

“I stand upon the shoulders of mein assistant, Roemin Pulansky. Say hello, Roemin.”

“Hahllo.”

“Unless your assistant is ten foot tall, meister Heksink, I dinnae think ye’ bae making this window.”

“Ach, Roemin stands upon the shoulders of an American journalist wearing a climatologically inappropriate, thin fabric-ed, and disreputable white suit.”

“Hello, up there. The name’s, Coalshack, Carl Coalshack. I’m with the Independent World News Agency of Chicago, Illinois. You may have heard of me.”

“Yessir! I think I have! Don’t you gotta funny handle hung on you? The ‘Night’...”

“Skulker.”

“Yessir, that’s it! The NightSkulker’!”

“Aye, and how may we’s bae helping y’lads?”

“Ach! Think are we vampire plotzen is hatchinz yonderz!”

“Yessir, we already figgered that. Say, what are y’all planning on doing?”

“Vee shall slay zee foul beasts as zhey lie dormant in their abominable coffins!”

“Ya know, this far South, this time of year, the daylight hours don’t last too long. In fact, I think they  have already passed while we were here talking.”

“Ach! Draughtte!”
sigh.

“Um, hello up there, if I may hurry this proceeding along, it is getting kind of difficult to stand here with two men stacked up on my shoulders. We are three vampire killers. Plus, I hope to get a scoop on a terrific story. Could you help us out by maybe opening a door or something for us?”

“Nae so fast, journo jockey. Ye’ said there bae three vampire killers among ye’. I coounts y’self and Dutchie here, bhaughtte ye’ cannae count the apprentice, Roemin, as a killer.”

“Ach, right you are, you picky Scotsman...”

“Aye.”

“Ach, speak up Liebchen, you are down there, not you are?”

“Yes, Mr. Van Heksink. Like, I am standing by with a big sharp wooden stake and a heavy mallet to like, drive that sucker home with!”

“Tee, hee! What’s this? Tis’ the voice o’ a young gel Oye hear, is it naughtte? Hah-what’s ye’ name lassie?”

“My name is Buffiegh, Buffiegh the vampire sl...Eek!”
-clatter, clatter-
“Like, I think there’s a vampire down here walking towards me!”

“I beg your pardon my dear. I did not intend to startle you. If I had known you vere so jumpy, perhaps I vould have vhistled to alert you to my approach, but of course, my fangs make the vhistling most difficult my dear. Please allow me to assist you. You seem to have dropped your sharpened wooden stake and heavy mallet. I shall retrieve them for you. Here are your gruesome, ghastly, wooden instruments of malicious murders, my blond, pony-tailed child.”

“Like, uh, thanks, mister.”

“Count, actually. Count Hela Gigalosi, my dear. Tell me, have you attained the age of consent yet?”

“Eek! A real vampire! Oh my gosh, you’re gonna sink your fangs into my neck and then ravage my young, innocent body! Eek!”

“As much as I would like to my dear, no. You see, we are all here under an honorary truce. I think that might even be extended to you brave, fearless gentlemen and the lovely young girl that vish to courageously drive great wooden stakes through our timeless, unknowable hearts while vee are helpless, comatose, and at peace, resting in our coffins, yes? How charming.”

“What’cha wanna do with these folks, Count Gigalosi?”

“As it is, I was coming around to gather you gentlemen anyvays. An honored nobleman of great importance has arrived and vishes everyvone to convene in the Great Hall.”

“Any ideas as to dismantling this living totem pole, sir?”

“Yes, vhy don’t you pull Dirty Dutch inside, and ve’ll help young Roemin down to the ground. I shall escort these uninvited and distasteful, though ultimately, our guests, around to the front entrance and meet you inside.”

---